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Lots of great SRKW calls (S3s, S4s) and clicks were automatically detected and recorded this morning, primarily on the Lime Kiln hydrophones. A few very loud calls are hard for me to categorize, but sound like variations on S42. Any other interpretations? An example:

The only auto-detection at Orcasound (5km north of Lime Kiln) was a series of echolocation clicks 6:52, so it’s not clear what direction they were headed. However, John Boyd just noted on Facebook that there were whales at Open Bay (south end of Henry Island) at 11:00.

Lots of whistles and calls (S1, S16) were detected by the WhoListener program this morning, first at Lime Kiln from 6:08-6:19, then at Orcasound (5 km north) from 7:47-7:52. Seems like some of the southern residents (J and K pod) are working the west side of San Juan Island, as members of both pods were observed and/or heard heading north towards and/or up through Haro Strait last night.

Did they double back and then go north again this morning or were they really (~9 hours?) spread out?

The most common call used by L pod was automatically detected and heard by humans today on the Orcasound and Lime Kiln hydrophones. An S4 and some S7 calls were first detected at Lime Kiln around 11:20. (Could there be some J pod members in the neighborhood?) Then many S19 calls were recorded first at Orcasound and later at Lime Kiln. Perhaps L pod is traveling south along the west side of San Juan Island, after a long absence (last sighted in the Salish Sea on May 30)?

J pod calls and whistles were heard by listening humans and computers tonight on the hydrophones at the Port Townsend Marine Science Center. Jeanne Hyde first reported them at 19:37, beating the automated detector by a full 20 minutes. Meg McDonald reported them at 20:39 and the final automated detections were at 20:58. Jeanne said the last faint calls she heard were at 20:59. So the vocal session lasted about 1 hour 22 minutes.

The automated recordings (below) contained predominantly S2 calls, some great whistles, and some high frequency buzzes. It was also noteworthy that calls were heard over clattering ship noise at 20:11, possibly the 20:00 departure of the Chetzemoka ferry from Port Townsend.

As J pod re-entered the Salish Sea yesterday and their favorite S1 call was heard for the first time on the live hydrophones in Neah Bay, I found myself hoping that J1 or Ruffles was with them. Is there still a chance that the old man will return this year? Has he been alone or lost in some outer bay of Vancouver Island, like Luna’s uncle Orcan may have been, all winter long?

Almost 1.5 years ago, in the 24 hours prior to noon 01/27/10, the oldest male southern resident whale known as J1 or Ruffles was twice heard calling out as he swam along the west side of San Juan Island. Through the live underwater microphones of http://orcasound.net J1 was recorded making long, repetitive sequences of relatively rare calls.

There is little evidence that other members his family, J pod, were nearby. The recordings only include consecutive calls with similar amplitudes, suggesting that only J1 was signaling (there was no response from an obviously distinct distance). Calls are commonly heard on the live hydrophones when orcas are within a range of 5-10 kilometers. Visual scans by Jeanne Hyde and other observers in the Islands also suggested that J1 was separated from the rest of his pod by more than a few kilometers.

These acoustic events were also unusual because the repeated calls (S42 and S10) are rarely heard. It’s also highly unusual to hear the same call repeated over and over again. It’s noteworthy that the most common J pod calls S1 and S4 were not interspersed with the S42 and S10 calls.

Further analysis of these sound files is warranted, along with consideration of the sequence of events preceding the 2010-2011 winter disappearance of J1. You can lend a hand by contributing to this public Google spreadsheet of the J1 location and call chronologies.

We’ll keep our fingers crossed that he’ll make a surprise return this spring, but odds are that we should all work on our tributes to J1. He still has much to teach us.

The only other time killer whales have been observed using this hydrophone was on 9/28/2008 at 23:00:00 — the approximate time when a human listener reported hearing calls. In both of these cases, however, the automatic detector was not triggered — although it may have done so during the loudest calls recorded today if I hadn’t over-ridden the system by manually recording through the WhoListener software.

Just after Jane Cogan observed orcas southbound at Kellett Bluff (at 11:30) today, clicks and (S1, S2, +) calls began to be automatically detected at the Orcasound hydrophones (first at 11:38). Jane noted in the on-line listening log that “Time approximate (within 5 minutes or so). I started hearing faint calls on the OrcaSound hydrophone, and within a few minutes, spotted orcas southbound near Kellett Bluff. Heard an assortment of calls for an hour or so as the orcas trickled past, slowly headed south.”

About 20 minutes after the first auto-detections at Orcasound, detections began at Lime Kiln and continued for about 45 minutes. Some of the recordings included S1, S10, and other calls. A few contained abundant clicks, and many captured a long screechy call that I haven’t heard before. Here are a couple examples of the call which in some cases seems appended to a short S10.

I was at Lime Kiln as the whales passed by there 1st picture taken at 11:52 as the first ones were approaching the light. at 12:10 by my camera, the one in front began high speed porpoising. there were three others, all spread out behind him, doing the same thing… they went a long distance under the surface between each surfacing… in total 13 to 15 whales passed by…the rest seemed to be about 2+ miles from shore. my last picture was taken at 12:50.

Today J pod (and L87) came in through Baynes Channel and traveled north up Haro Strait (based on Ron Bates report to Center for Whale Research mentioned on Orca Network Facebook page. The whales made some clear calls and clicks on the Lime Kiln hydrophones. Here is a sample recording of the calls which mainly were repeated S2s. Jeanne Hyde first heard a few calls at 10:50, but the following auto-detections only began at 11:28.

After hearing that SRKWs had been sighted this morning in Puget Sound near Vashon Island, I checked through the Port Townsend automated detections. Although no live listeners caught the many calls between about 9pm and midnight, the were relatively loud compared to past detections, suggesting that some of the pod members were passing through Admiralty Inlet on the Port Townsend side.

This was a good example of how the southern residents can sneak up on the proposed Snohomish County tidal power site. The hydrophone observation log say that Jeanne heard J and K pod calls as late as 19:16 and 19:27 on 1/30/11 at Orcasound and Lime Kiln, respectively. The latest Orca Network report mentioned others hearing them slightly later and Sandy Buckley getting hints they were headed north, though Jeanne had heard they were heading south in Active Pass earlier that day (at 14:45). This implies they made it from Active to being audible at Orcasound (at 17:14) in about 2.5 hours. That’s about 25km in 2.5hrs, or an average speed of 10 km/hr = 5.4 knots.

I hear S1, 2, 4, and a handful of S16s, so suspect we’ll get photo ID confirmation today that the visiting pods are Js and maybe a few Ks. I didn’t notice any whistles or clicks. Feel free to listen to the following mp3s and add your sound classifications in the comments.

This evening from about 17:00 to 21:00 there were some great calls heard by humans and auto-recorded at Orcasound (and to a much more limited extent at Lime Kiln). Early on (listen to the 17:00-19:00 hour recordings), the calls were faint but the background noise level was low (~97 dB re 1 microPa). The result was a series of calls that sounded pretty strange, especially with the echoes that were audible under such quiet conditions.